Does My Son Know You?

What happens when you get diagnosed in April 2021 at age 33 with a rare form of cancer—so rare, in fact, that the odds of contracting it are 25 million to 1? What happens when the doctors can’t tell you if you have five months or five years to live? And what happens with your son, born at the end of March 2020 at the outset of a global pandemic?

That’s the story of Jonathan Tjarks, who has covered basketball for The Ringer since 2016 and is a host on The Ringer NBA Show. He loves Jesus and Dallas, in that order. And he wrote about cancer, his son, and his church in a remarkable essay for The Ringer called “Does My Son Know You?” In his essay, Tjarks concludes this way:

“I have already told some of my friends: When I see you in heaven, there’s only one thing I’m going to ask—Were you good to my son and my wife? Were you there for them? Does my son know you?”

Jonathan Tjarks joins Collin Hansen on this episode of Gospelbound to discuss basketball, his journalistic career, and the reception to his memorable essay.